For I maintain that there are no small feats of arms, but only good and great ones, although some feats of arms are of greater worth than others. Therefore, I say that he who does more is of greater worth.
The Livre de Chevalerie or Book of Chivalry1 is a 14th century treatise by the knight Geoffroi de Charny to provide philosophical grounding for the new French Ordre de l’Étoile - a chivalric order2 that he was a part of.
Geoffroi attempts to explain how a knight should be chivalrous - in particular focusing on them being really bold and skilled and not getting fat or lazy. He prescribes being almost monastic in behavior3. It’s an interesting look into the self-justifications of knighthood at the time.
Footnotes
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Styled as A Knight’s Own Book of Chivalry by the translation I used. ↩
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That is, a society of knighthood - meant to encourage chivalrous actions in a kind of Rotary Club way - and also usually an inflation of honorifics and ceremonies. This particular one kind of flopped. ↩
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And imbues this combination of daring and ascetic behavior a kind of religious aura. ↩